Card Apprentice Daily Log

Date- 18 April 2321

Time- 10:17

Location- Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City

Wyatt was not surprised by the Field Marshal's reaction. Instead, ignoring her words, he continued to say, 'Field Marshal, these past few days, you have monitored and seen how I treat my friends, family, and employees. Still, I promise you, that if you give me your loyalty, I will do nothing unworthy of it.'

'You are mad, you are drunk on the fame my niece has been feeding you. You are just a teenager, please act like it before it's too late,' the Field Marshal said, now that she finally understood what Wyatt was trying to say all this time. He was showing her the problems that she did not see and also the solutions to them that were beyond her. He revealed it all to her, saying, as long as he had her loyalty he would take care of it for her.

How could the Field Marshal miss Wyatt's true intention, she has been courted before, and right now Wyatt was doing the same. While she was thinking of the wager, that boy was trying to court her as one of his subordinates. Her mind was blown away by Wyatt's audacity.

Not only did he, a mere card master, dare to boldly try and recruit one of the top ten strongest in the world but he did not seem to worry about completing the wager which gave her a bad feeling. If she was not reading too much into things he was acting like he had already won.

'How?' the Field Marshal wondered in her mind and immediately contacted the facility and asked the personnel in charge of monitoring Clown Mask from up close for the next eight hours to check if the Clown Mask in front of them was the real one or not.

Receiving the confirmation from her people that the Clown Mask in the facility was indeed the real one and not a stand-in, Field Marshal felt that she was starting to get paranoid wound up by Wyatt's games. When actually, all she was doing was trying everything to not give heed to what Wyatt proposed to her. After all, what Wyatt proposed was too good to be true and absurd. How can a teenager be the answer to all her troubles? However, still, she felt a sense of urgency to conclude the wager as fast as possible which Wyatt was partially after.

'Field Marshal, you don't believe that. If I was just an ordinary teenager you would not leave your post at Way beyond and come to a third-rate city in the remote part of the Southern region to protect me.

Can an average teenager rescue a prisoner from the Southern region's most secured facility?

The question here is not if I can do what I claim but if you are willing to take a chance,' Wyatt did not let the Field Marshal just dismiss his proposal but asked her to give it a chance.

'You speak as if you have already rescued the Clown Mask,' the Field Marshal had a strong will and had long decided to ignore Wyatt's words as a devil's whisper. But just like how the best of us fall for the temptation of the devil. Field Marshal too was starting to fall for Wyatt's words. Because Wyatt spoke just the words her heart wanted to hear and promised everything she wanted.

'I will have rescued her by now if not for me holding back to win you over,' Wyatt said, not caring for the ambiguity in his words. He had become bolder the more the Field Marshal tried to ignore his words. The only reason she was trying so hard to ignore his words was because they were working. She was tempted to shake Wyatt's hand on the stakes he sought.

'Oh, really, then you would not be worried if I were to decrease the time limit of the wager to an hour,' the Field Marshal asked, feeling Wyatt was being too overconfident.

'If you are willing to bet your loyalty, sure I don't mind giving it a try,' Wyatt said nonchalantly, not giving the Field Marshal a definite answer. Leaving her guessing.

'Okay, then if you are willing to reduce the time limit of the wager to an hour, then I am willing to bet my loyalty,' the Field Marshal joked, feeling that Wyatt was playing one of his mind tricks on her again.

'Sure, do we have a deal?' Wyatt agreed, shocking the Field Marshal who was only kidding around. She was dumbfounded, she did not understand what Wyatt was thinking by agreeing to something so absurd. However, unlike her Wyatt was laughing in his mind in satisfaction as the Field Marshal finally quote a price for her loyalty even if she was kidding.

'No— not an hour, reduce the time limit of the wager to half an hour, and then we have a deal,' the Field Marshal hurriedly corrected. She knew she was being shameless but she wanted to see how far Wyatt was willing to go.

Whenever people came to court the Field Marshal, they all came with the most luxurious gifts to shower her with, and the Field Marshal enabled them as she liked that part since it allowed her to gauge her value in the market. She was doing the same with Wyatt. However, she was always trying to figure out if Wyatt was being for real and learn his bottom line. She still had not given up on winning the wager. After all, she liked winning, especially when it looked like she was going to lose.

'You do know that you are asking me to orchestrate a prison break in one of the most secured facilities of the southern region that is inside a secret space a few thousand miles from here and not buy milk from the neighborhood store, right?' Wyatt asked the Field Marshal if it was alright for her to state such absurd condition.

'I thought you were holding back to win me over. Don't tell me you were just bragging,' the Field Marshal teased Wyatt. Then, she asked, 'Now you know what you need to do to get my loyalty, do we have a deal?'

...

[AN: Check out Reader's Quest Board in the Author's Thoughts section for mass release.]